About the Wabash Study 2010

CCRI has the distinction of being the only community college among the thirty colleges and universities selected to join the Wasbash Study 2010. The study will last three years, ending in the fall of 2013 . The goal is for institutions
to use evidence to identify an area of student learning or experience that they
wish to improve, and then to create, implement, and assess changes designed to
improve those areas. The study is designed to create a deliberative process for
using evidence that an institution can build on for improvements in student
learning. This includes building institutional capacity and infrastructure that
can support successful assessment efforts after the study is completed. While
each institution will focus on improving areas that are relevant to that
institution, faculty, staff, and administrators from these institutions will
collaborate during the course of the study as a community of practice, sharing
information, approaches, problem-solving strategies, and lessons learned.

The Wabash Study is a three-year project designed to assess the
following:

1. Evaluate the results of quantitative and qualitative assessment evidence;

2. Use that evidence to identify specific institutional, course, and program
elements they would like to strengthen;

3. Develop, implement, and assess responses that are designed to strengthen
these institutional elements.

Inputs – the attitudes and values that students bring into college

Experiences – the experiences that impact students once they are in college

Outcomes – the impact that college has on student ability and knowledge

Each Wabash Study institution will build an Assessment Portfolio that
consolidates an institution's evidence about inputs, experiences, and outcomes.
This portfolio will form a "knowledge base" from which institutions will work
during the course of the study. Although the specific forms of evidence in each
institution's portfolio will vary, institutions are required to include evidence
on the qualities, values, and skills that students bring to colleges, measures
of what they experience in and out of the classroom during college, and measures
of student learning. In addition, can include any other program, department, or
institutional assessment evidence they deem important in their Wabash Study
Assessment Portfolios.

Having good assessment evidence is only a first step toward making sense of
and using that evidence to inform changes that improve student learning. The new
version of the Wabash Study is designed to shift the emphasis from gathering
evidence to working through a structured "change curriculum" that is designed to
help campus constituencies.

Although
the Wabash Study includes tests and surveys that will help an institution meet
accountability standards, the study focuses on the formative use of evidence to
promote institutional changes. We will accomplish this through a series of
structured site visits, meetings, and workshops that we developed in the first
iteration of the Wabash Study. These activities are staffed by the Director and
Associate Director of the Center of Inquiry and Teagle Assessment Scholars.
Teagle Scholars include faculty and administrators from institutions across the
country with expertise in assessment and institutional improvement.